‘Hush, Barney, you don’t have to make such a fuss.’
‘You’re Lara? Sean’s little sister?’
Lifting her gaze, she fell into Gabriel’s mesmerising crystal-blue stare like a diver plunging straight into the sunlit Mediterranean.
With her heart slamming against her ribs, she nodded slowly. ‘That’s right. Though not so little any more, I’m afraid.’
Rising to her full height again—five feet seven of slim limbs and womanly curves in light blue denims and a fitted white shirt—she was nothing like the plump, awkward teenager she’d been when she was sixteen. It was no surprise that Gabriel hadn’t recognised her.
‘Well, I’ll be...’
He seemed to be genuinely shocked. Lara even detected a faint flush of heat in his chiselled countenance.
‘You have grown up. Look...’
Tunnelling his long fingers through his thick chestnut hair, he inadvertently drew her attention to his strong, indomitable brow—a brow that was etched with two deeply hewn furrows. It didn’t suggest he utilised that devastating smile of his very often these days. Whatever road life had taken him down it hadn’t all been plain sailing, she thought. He might be rich, but no matter how much money a person had it didn’t protect them from the slings and arrows that life aimed at everyone along the way... No one got off scot-free.
‘I only learned of Sean’s death yesterday,’ Gabriel confessed. ‘I saw an article in the newspaper about charity workers that had died of malaria and his name was mentioned. The piece said that he’d recently won a prestigious award for his work. I was stunned to hear that he’d died. I feel bad that I never kept in touch with him after we left university.’
‘You took different paths.’ Lara shrugged, her smile unsure.
She’d hate Gabriel to think she was criticising him, even though she’d never understood why he’d chosen to go into a profession that, in her view, was about taking rather than giving—a profession that was the polar opposite of Sean’s.
‘But it’s good of you to call round to pay your respects. Mum and Dad will be touched when I tell them. I’m sure you must know they were very fond of you. Anyway, you’re probably busy, so I won’t keep you.’
Lara fervently willed him to take the cue she’d offered and leave. There was no way she wanted him to think that she was especially pleased to see him again. She was no longer the foolish sixteen-year-old whose crush on him had probably painfully embarrassed him.
But Gabriel sighed and stayed where he was. ‘Look...I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but is there any chance of a cup of tea? I promise not to take up too much of your time.’
As much as she wished she could come up with a convincing excuse that she was indeed busy, Lara had glimpsed an unexpected look of vulnerability in his eyes and she didn’t have the heart to refuse him.
‘Why don’t you come in?’ she invited. ‘I was just about to have one myself.’
Feeling relieved, Gabriel followed Lara down the hallway towards what he remembered was a spacious and homely kitchen. As he walked slowly behind the brunette his astonishment that the sometimes shy and bookish teenager had blossomed into such a beauty made him stare at her shapely hourglass figure in wonder.
What her curvaceous body did for a simple pair of jeans and plain white shirt should be committed to art or poetry, he mused. Even though he wasn’t remotely artistic or poetic himself, it certainly didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the more aesthetically pleasing things in life—which was why he’d selected a New York apartment that had a stunning view of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Every now and then, when he found the time, he’d visit to remind himself that money wasn’t the only thing in life worth appreciating. Yes, it gave a person a lot more options if he had it, but it didn’t buy happiness. God knew he’d learned that to his cost over the years.... The contemplation of beauty and art ‘soothed the troubled soul’, as one wise guide at the museum had put it to him once, and although he would never dream of sharing such a view with any of his colleagues, Gabriel had agreed. That was why he admired the artists who created it.
But his admiration of Lara’s beauty was set aside as he entered the kitchen. It was indeed as homely as he remembered. And the old-fashioned stand-alone fixtures and fittings, including the 1930s pillarbox-red AGA, straight away transported him right back to when he and Sean had been young.
He recalled with fondness the countless delicious meals Peggy Bradley had made for them—in particular during that seemingly ‘endless’ summer when he and Sean, in between revising for their exams, had laughed and joked together, listened to the music of their favourite bands, mercilessly teased Lara and generally enjoyed being young and free of care, not burdened with responsibility as so many of the adults that they’d known had seemed to be. It had been easy to fantasise then that that those halcyon days would last for ever....
Gabriel’s senses were suddenly awash in a sea of poignant and heartfelt memory. As if to compound his feelings, he saw that the cream dresser was full of engaging family pictures, and taking pride of place was an eye-catching photograph of Sean as he must have looked before he died. His mischievous brown eyes were full of laughter and his wide smile highlighted the chipped front tooth that Gabriel had accidentally broken when he’d too zealously bowled a cricket ball in the garden for him to bat. He had been the closest friend that Gabriel had ever had, and even though he hadn’t kept in touch with him it cut him to the quick to think that he was no longer here....
‘Everything looks just the same,’ he remarked huskily, reaching his hand up to loosen the shirt collar that suddenly felt constricting.
‘Mum and Dad aren’t great lovers of change. They’re old-fashioned like that.’ Lara smiled fondly. ‘Not to mention sentimental. They’ve become even more so since losing Sean.’ Her smile vanished and, clearly needing a moment, she turned towards the sink to fill the kettle.
‘It must have been a terrible shock to you all to receive the news that he’d died,’ Gabriel murmured sympathetically.
‘It was. One minute we were talking to him on Skype, hearing all about the events of his day, and the next...’ Sadly shaking her head, Lara turned off the tap that had been gushing water into the kettle then moved across to the generous granite worktop to plug it into a socket to boil. ‘How do you like your tea?’ she asked, tucking some of her glossy dark hair behind her ear as she turned back.
‘Don’t you remember?’ Gabriel teased, recalling with pleasure the numerous cups of tea an eager-to-please young Lara had made him whenever he’d stayed over or visited Sean. ‘I used to tell you that, next to your mum, you made the best cup of tea in the world.’
‘You did, didn’t you?’ Her generous mouth curved with pleasure. ‘Okay, then, I’ll see if I can remember how you like it. Don’t tell me—just let me have a go. Pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable.’
He didn’t need to be asked twice. This house was the only place he’d ever known that really felt like home, with everything that that word represented.
Jaded and tired from the demands and rigours of inhabiting the soulless world of high finance for what had probably been too many years to stay wholly sane, Gabriel had a secret yearning for some simplicity
